Jacob S. Allen (ca. 1839-1909), a builder in Raleigh and Wilmington during the late 19th century, was associated with several firms including Betts and Allen, and Ellington, Royster, and Company, as well as working on his own as Jacob S. Allen and Company. The saga of his various partnerships and businesses illustrates the fluidity...

Henry Bacon, Jr. (Nov. 28, 1866-Feb. 16, 1924), best known as the architect of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C., spent much of his youth in Wilmington, North Carolina, and he designed some notable buildings in the state as a result. The friendships he made in Wilmington as a youth led to several...

William Carter Bain (January 8, 1839- July 8, 1920) was a prolific and adaptable contractor who epitomized the energetic entrepreneurship of the post-Civil War well into the 20th century. Bain began as a small-town artisan, served in the Confederate army, and became a regional builder and manufacturer. Adapting successfully to changing times during a...

A. G. Bauer (December 4, 1858-May 11, 1898), architect, designed some of North Carolina's most imposing and ebulliently stylish buildings of the late 19th century. He came to North Carolina in 1883 as assistant to architect Samuel Sloan of Philadelphia at a time when the state was embarking on major postwar projects but had...

Alfred S. Eichberg (August 23, 1859-May 15, 1921), a leading Savannah architect, designed two buildings in North Carolina, both in Wilmington: the F. Rheinstein and Company Building and the New Hanover County Courthouse, the latter being one of the state's few surviving examples of the massive and eclectic courthouses of the late 19th century...

Emerson and Fehmer (fl. 1870s-1880s) was an architectural firm noted for its work in the northeastern states. The partners consisted of William Ralph Emerson (1833-1917) and Carl Fehmer (1838-1916), architects who also had notable careers on their own. Their work concentrated in the Northeast, with few known works in the South. It was probably...

William Alfred (Will. A.) Freret (1833-1911), a native of New Orleans, served as Supervising Architect of the Treasury from 1887 to 1889. He was the son of William Freret, a mayor of the city, and cousin to New Orleans architect James Freret. During his brief tenure as supervising architect, his office (which included some...

Benjamin Gardner (1792-1860), a builder active in antebellum Wilmington, built and may have designed key Greek Revival buildings including the city's handsome market house. Part of a family established in the city, he appeared in the United States Census in Wilmington in 1820 and in subsequent censuses through 1850, when he was listed as...

The Howe Family of Wilmington, North Carolina, encompassed at least four generations of men of color active in the city's building trades. As traced in Strength Through Struggle, they included Anthony Howe (d. 1837) and his sons Anthony (ca. 1807-after 1870), Pompey (d. by 1869), and Alfred Augustus (1817-1892); Anthony's sons Anthony Jr. (dates...

Addison Hutton (1834-1916), an important Philadelphia architect born a Quaker in Pennsylvania, began his career as assistant to architect Samuel Sloan from 1857 to 1861, supervising Sloan's works in the South. The first of these were Sloan's First Presbyterian Church (1859-1861) and First Baptist Church (1859-1870), in Wilmington, North Carolina. In antebellum Wilmington, where...